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Wednesday, November 04, 2009
A Midsummer Night's Sequel?
Title: Magic Street
Author: Orson Scott Card
Bookmark: tag from a metal water bottle
Another weird one.
Mack Street is found as a baby by a young boy, then raised by the boy's neighbor, a nurse, who only lets Mack call her Miz Smitcher, like all the other neighborhood kids. As he grows up, he learns that when he has his "cold dreams," they come true--but they're other people's wishes. People who live near him and think they know what they want wish for these things, but their wishes get twisted, Monkey's Paw style, and show up in Mack's dreams as they are granted.
As Mack tries to understand the source or reason behind his dreams, he comes to find the very real magic in his own neighborhood, and a thin spot where our world gives way to a Fairy world. He learns the truth of his own origins, and how he is connected to Titania and Oberon, and how badly Mssr. Wm. Shakespeare botched their story. Then, naturally, a climactic final battle spanning two worlds simultaneously. Awesome.
However, despite a worm-dragon, near gang-rape, scary magical panthers, a megalomaniacal and extremely powerful fairy king, and a baby conceived and born in a matter of a couple hours, the scariest, most disturbing part of the book was in the acknowledgements. I was reading an Advance Reader Copy, whose back cover explicitly states that you are not to quote this copy without checking an actual release version, but I think that by stating that here (and the relative obscurity of our blog) covers me to quote that paragraph:
"I must also thank the 59, 729,952 people who voted for the re-election of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, allowing me to sleep at night as I wrote the last five chapters of this novel."Labels: fairies, fantasy, Shakespeare, young protagonists
posted by reyn at
10:08 PM
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Pulp Affliction
Title: The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps
Editor: Otto Penzler
Bookmark: one I've used before.
Te back cover claims that this is "the biggest, the boldest, the most comprehensive collection of pulp writing ever assembled!" Let's examine those claims.
Biggest: It's paperback, printed on the thinnest paper available without actually being transparent tissue, and still the size of a major city's telephone book. You could prop a door open with this thing, or hold your car in place while changing the tire. It has over a thousand pages. Yes, it's huge.
Boldest: I'm really not sure how to address this, especially because my only other taste of pulps was a couple books from roughly the same era, and I'm not even sure they count. Perhaps the boldness is more in claiming that some of these stories are worth reading, but each is preceded by a page giving some history of the author, the story, the pulp magazine in which it was published, or the era itself. Many of those forewords note that the following story appeared in one of the publications that paid writers half a cent per word (the best offered ten cents per word) for the stories, and the quality was a reflection of the price, so this book is at least more honest about its contents than the pulp magazines ever were.
Most Comprehensive: No arguing that. It ranges from Hammett, Chandler, and Gardner (including one Hammett story never published before) to several authors on which the editor could find no information whatsoever. They may have been pseudonyms for someone better known , or simply a nobody who happened to get one story published before disappearing again into obscurity. The book makes no claims to include only high-quality stuff, and even pokes a little fun at some of the poorer stories (and the magazines that ran them). Sometimes, the bad stories were just as entertaining because they were so very bad.
Occasionally, I was bored out of my mind. Usually, it was entertaining. Once, I had to take a break of two or three months because I was so saturated with pulp nonsense that I had to take a break and read something lighter. It took me well over a year--probably closer to two--to finish the damn thing, and it's far too big to stash in a coat pocket or purse for airport or beach use, but if you want something to keep by the bed for a while, it's perfect.Labels: compilation, murder, mystery/detective
posted by reyn at
9:43 PM
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Monday, November 02, 2009
The voodoo that you do
Title: Count Zero
Author: William Gibson
Bookmark: strip of dinosaur stickers
This is another book I rescued from someone's garage. That's good, because I may have to read it once or twice more to figure out what the hell is going on.
I mean, sure, it's fun to read, but I think Gibson goes a little too far with the "tell the reader as little as possible and let them figure it out themselves" approach that other authors handle a bit better by at least telling us enough to know what's happening.
I'll give summarizing a shot.
There are three main storylines. You'd think that eventually these three sets of characters would intersect somehow, since they're all (apparently... i think...) chasing after the same thing.
Turner is a corporate mercenary, hired through his agent (who may be far more shady than you'd think) to help either steal the best young minds from competing companies, or to help those minds defect to another company. Technological secrets and the people who develop them are valued in Gibson's future, to the point that many companies maintain high-tech facilities where their employees live and work, with no direct contact with the outside world. (one of them is in a hollowed-out mesa, which is a pretty cool idea in itself) Turner is blown to smithereens in the first chapter. They collect enough of him to rebuild him in some sort of tank so he can be hired to help a scientist escape from one company to another. Turner must work with several lower-level mercenaries, one of whom tried to kill him in the past, and figure out which one of them is a mole, feeding information to his back-stabbing, double-crossing agent.
Bobby Newmark, operating with the handle Count Zero, is a wannabe hacker who, using a piece of code bestowed upon him by his own agent, finds something so powerful and strange that it blows his connection, knocks him out cold, and results in at least one death squad coming for him. His apartment is blown up by a missile attack while his soap-opera-addicted mother is inside, and in his desperate flight he meets two men who claim that the Network is full of voodoo gods, and that one of them saved Bobby's ass when his hack went haywire.
Marly Krushkova, still recovering from the scandal surrounding an art scam in her gallery that was actually orchestrated by her dirtbag ex-boyfriend (without her knowledge), is hired by Herr Virek to find the maker of a tiny diorama, really just items in a box, but it somehow captures their imagination, and is very like several other boxes, and nobody seems to know the source. Oh, and Virek is sustained by tanks similar to those that saved Turner, but the apparatus that keeps him alive occupies three semi truck trailers.
The thing that really gets me--and this might be due to the fact that I read it months ago, and may have forgotten--is that I'm not sure all three stories intersect. None of those characters actually meet each other, and I think I know the connection between Turner and Bobby, but either I never found a link betwene either of them and Marly, or I've forgotten it. It's a very strange book, but it still held my attention for the duration.
Seriously, though. Voodoo gods. In Cyberspace.Labels: hunky armed forces or government operatives, irresponsible parents, sci-fi, wizards
posted by reyn at
10:06 PM
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Worth it
Title: The Worthing Saga
Author: Orson Scott Card
Bookmark: I read this months ago. Who knows? Probably a candy wrapper, or grocery receipt, or a child's stolen dreams, or something.
Orson Scott Card doesn't really write books. He crafts worlds. Granted, I've only read the first two books of the Ender series, and there's a good chance that, like Frank Herbert's Dune books, or the Hitchhiker Trilogy, that one will also eventually show the author's boredom with the idea, or burgeoning insanity. But it's still more than just a sci-fi story; he includes little details of the life in that society that you may not think to ask about, but when presented matter-of-factly, and in a way that isn't overt ("oh, and look at this other cool technology! And see how we do things this way, instead of the way things are done in the reader's world??"), it comes across as though you're just peering into that world, and learning from your own casual observations, rather than being spoon-fed the things the author thinks will impress you most and think he's a good writer. Card doesn't prove he can write by trying to impress you--he proves he can write by writing, and damn well at that.
The Worthing Saga is actually a compilation of three earlier works, all in the same universe (I think in the foreword Card mentions that he didn't even think to connect them all in the same universe until after some of it had already been written, but I read it ages ago, so maybe I made that up. It still works.). The Worthing Saga tells of the arrival of two mysterious strangers on the day that a mountain village experiences pain, death, and loss for the first time. Both of the strangers are telepaths with vibrant blue eyes, and tell their story by feeding dreams to a boy in the village, and he writes the stories as they come to him. The man turns out to be Jason Worthing, a name spoken as a god on their world and, it turns out, many others as well. Through the boy's dreams and his conversations with Jason, he learns why Jason brought them pain (or did something else happen? yeah, probably. It's sci-fi, after all), why they needed pain, and what his own purpose in the world might be. We also learn the history of a trans-planetary society, from its roots of a few dozen people, to the seeding of dozens of planets, and up to the day when they all found Pain. At the center of it all is Jason, guiding his people up from a Tool Age to a spacefaring civilization as he skips through time on waves of Somec.
Tales of Capitol is a collection of short stories that sets the stage for the Worthing Chronicles. Each focuses on a different citizen of the city-planet Capitol, and in one case, a colony planet. Somec is a drug which allows people to sleep through years, or decades, prolonging their life indefinitely, but it is rationed according to status. The Empress is awake for only a day every five years. Others may only sleep for a year in ten, but even that is considered a great accomplishment. These stories show how Somec affects peoples lives and the society as a whole, but they also give glimpses into all layers of Capitol society, from the poorest dregs to the Empress herself. And behind it all is Abner Doon. Doon, whose name is that of the devil in the sleepy mountain village of the Worthing Chronicle. Doon, who sent Jason out as a Somec pilot on a colony ship and thereby saved humanity. Doon, whose machinations brought about the fall of the empire in the first place, not to destroy humankind, but to save it from its Somec-addled stagnation. He's a bastard, but he's a magnificent bastard, and though his methods may be questionable, I can't really argue with his reasons--or his results.
Finally, Tales From the Forest of Waters recounts some of what Jason's dreams told his biographer, but with greater detail and, honestly, quite a few changes. Jason explains the discontinuities by pointing out that the stories written by his biographer are the remembered dreams of transmitted memories of generational retellings, and some details may have been lost or addled along the way.
Card didn't just write a universe, he wrote the entire history of a trans-planetary society's rise, fall, death, rebirth, rise, stumble, and recovery. What's more, he does it in a way that gives the broad scope and personal stories at the same time, and manages to not bore me to tears while doing it. Excellent stuff.Labels: commentary, sci-fi, special abilities, world domination
posted by reyn at
9:30 PM
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Sunday, October 11, 2009
Cooking with Lots of Butter
Title: Julie & Julia
Author: Julia Powell
After an incredibly long hiatus from blogging about a book I read (during which time, I read tons of books...), this is the first book I really felt inclined to write about.
This is, I believe, my first foray into the genre of cooking literature (if that's what they are calling it). Humorously, I've always rather disliked cooking but love cooking shows, so a book about cooking sounded like it might be good.
And it was. Julie & Julia is the mostly true story of Julie Powell, who randomly decided, in a pushing 30 crisis, that she would cook every recipe from Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking within one year. And she would blog about it.
Full of honesty, frustration, gore (preparing a live lobster for cooking can get a bit gross), and snarky comments, Julie & Julia is an entertaining read. I have to respect someone who is able to cook 524 butter laden recipes in 365 days. I think I would've given up around day 3. It's also an interesting quarterlife (or thereabouts) crisis. And as someone who is nearing that rather intimidating fourth decade, I can relate to the desire to do something fulfilling that will somehow give life added meaning.
But for now I'm really looking forward to making a butternut squash soup this afternoon.Labels: creative nonfiction, humor
posted by Kate at
10:31 AM
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Scratch that itch
Title: Infected
Author: Scott Sigler
It should be noted that this was read as an "uncorrected proof" circulated to get advance reviews. Not to me, we're not that highly-regarded yet. You hear that, major publishers?? We're willing and able to review your stuff!! Just send us some free books and maybe some swag! However, there are some things that should be cleared up even before making it to the "uncorrected proof" stage.
I saw this book in a store a couple months ago, and I was very intrigued. Yes, the cover art is super-creepy, but the premise also sounded good. Reading it was a lesson in how to mistreat a promising premise. Sigler isn't quite as good as he thinks he is, but he's trying really hard.
There are two parallel story lines, and that much works really well: on the one side, you have the medical researchers and a couple government operatives working their asses off to identify and understand a mysterious new contagion that makes people go crazy, kill the people around them, and then themselves. Then they decompose at such a freakishly accelerated rate that they have yet to find a useful body of one of the victims; just puddles of goo with bones piled up in the middle. On the other side, you have "Scary" Perry Dawsey, a former college football star now working in IT who becomes infected, providing you with a first-hand view of what the victims go through. Like I said, the premise is pretty sweet.
The downside is, Sigler's execution is a little... off. I can't quite put my finger on how, but that's probably because I finished over a month ago.Labels: bad science, hunky armed forces or government operatives, talking plants, world domination
posted by reyn at
10:52 PM
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More than a walk in the park
Title: A Walk in the Woods
Author: Bill Bryson
This is one of those books that nearly everyone who knows me has recommended I read at one point or another. I can see why--it's funny as hell.
It's also packed with information on the Appalachian Trail, the National Parks system, the National Forest Service, the history of the east coast, and... how not to hike the Appalachian Trail. As I was reading it, someone told me that a lot of backpackers don't like it, because most people assume that Bryson through-hiked the AT (that's what backpackers call it when you take a few month's sabbatical and hike the whole damn mess in one shot), and he didn't. But he makes it a point to remind you of that several times in the book. Yes, he says he "hiked the Appalachian Trail," but he makes it clear that he did not hike all of the Appalachian Trail.
Fine. Big deal. He still writes a hugely entertaining and informative book about the AT and the people who love it. Even if you don't agree with him, it's still a fun trip.Labels: comedy, non-fiction, travel
posted by reyn at
10:44 PM
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Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Girl meets Psychotic A.I.
Title: Star Trek Voyage: Cybersong
Author: S.N. Lewitt
Bookmark: movie ticket stub from a bar
At the end of a climbing trip in May, I took a bunch of books from a box labeled "free" in a friend's garage. It was a long flight back. I grabbed this because I liked the TV series, and I'd read some Star Trek books in high school. Now I wonder if they were all this uninteresting, and I didn't notice because I was in high school, or if this one was just especially blah.
I don't even remember most of it now. (Like I said, May) They find some derelict ships floating in space, for some reason they can't escape, and eventually learn that there's a sociopathic AI on one of the ships that hates being lonely, but tends to kill off the crews it collects as playmates. Luckily, Voyager has a stereotypical nerd-girl in Stellar Cartography, so the two socially inept outcasts can talk to each other.Labels: sci-fi
posted by reyn at
11:33 AM
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Fat Bastard
Title: Star Wars: Tales From Jabba's Palace
Edited by: Kevin J. Anderson
Bookmark: boarding pass stub
It's a collection of short stories about what goes on behind the scenes in Jabba's Palace. Most of them overlap with the day Luke kills the Rancor and gets taken to the Sarlacc. Most of them are at least a nice diversion, with one glaring exception (someone tried to go all Lovecraftian with a snot vampire, and it's just painful to read), but the truth is, this is either aimed at a much younger audience, or a much lower reading level. I enjoyed most of it, but at the time, I was spending a lot of time in planes and airports, so I only needed a little diversion to keep me occupied.
PS, it turns out there were at least a dozen plots to kill Jabba at the time.Labels: evil empire, sci-fi
posted by reyn at
11:32 AM
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Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Yo Quiero Better Writing
Title: Edge of Battle
Author: Dale "no, not Dan" Brown
Bookmark: the doorknob tag that told me my oven had been fixed. Again.
Have you ever been flipping through channels late at night and found some awful SciFi original movie--not something they adapted from a book, or some half-assed sequel to something with a real production budget, but something truly their own--with a name like Alligator! or Horror Mountain? I've been there. In the first 30 picoseconds, you figure, "hell, it has some horrific beast with lots of teeth and some sort of mutagenic origin, and that shapely paleocryptoxenobiologist isn't bad for ogling when she's not phoning in her stilted lines. I'll give it a shot," and by the time five seconds are past, you've already decided that it has stolen vital moments of your lifetime from you, and not only will you never, ever get those moments back, but you're also sober enough that you're forced to remember it all.
This book is like that. Except it took me longer to realize how awful it was (I'm not a super-fast reader), and yet... I kept reading. However, I only kept reading so I could loudly pan it in this space. I only hope my harsh criticism will do it justice.
The damn thing starts with several pages of ... let's call it glossary. First, a wide cast of characters, which was strange only because it names some characters who exist for only a paragraph or two, and omits a couple that turn out to be comparably important. Plus, any reasonably intelligent person should be able to figure out who's who by reading the damn book. On the other hand, a reasonably intelligent person wouldn't have read the whole book. Next is a list of technologies and weapons, many of them invented by the author, and finally a glossary of various abbreviations. This was somewhat useful, but again everything I didn't already know was defined in the context of the book anyway, so... why?
The second glossary got me interested. It promised lots of high-tech weaponry, and some sort of robotic exosuit used by the good guys. I thought with ten-foot robot warriors going after terrorists, there had to be something awesome. By the end of the book, I hated the damned robots. It takes a lot to make me hate robots, especially ones used by the good guys. I became an engineer largely because of R2-D2.
The plot, mangled convoluted mess that it is, centers on rising hostilities between the US and Mexico over immigration law. Eventually we find out that a lot of it is being orchestrated for... some reason never fully specified, and there's also some Russian terrorist mastermind who seems to be leftover from a previous book. The thought that there is more than one book in this series scares me more than the Russian terrorists. I'm also unsettled that I could never figure out whether the author sides witht he extremist right-wing, or was satirizing them. Was he playing as Rush Limbaugh, or Stephen Colbert on meth?? I couldn't tell!!
Every chapter is riddled with inconsistencies--the robots keep changing size, they fold in ways that would make even Michael Bay call "bullshit", people suddenly appear in one place after reporting in from another, weapons disappear right out of their hands, and I'm pretty sure a lot of the Spanish was improperly translated--and the dialog made me want to burn things. Usually after finishing a book I don't need to keep (or return to the library), I'd stick it in a box and ship it to Cleveland or DC, but I think I'd rather tear this one in half and stuff it in the recycling. It's not just terrible writing, it's politically offensive terrible writing.Labels: politics, shit, terrorism
posted by reyn at
6:26 PM
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Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Voulez-vous la guerre avec moi? Non.
Title: Jackdaws
Author: Ken Follett
Here's the deal: in order to break German lines of communication in World War Two, the British Special Operations Executive send their best undercover operative (who has spent two years coordinating the French Resistance) to Reims, France to blow up a major telephone exchange, thereby facilitating the Normandy invasion.
Here's the catch: her (yes, her) team is composed entirely of women. And since most able-bodied women are already assigned elsewhere to help the war effort, she's not getting the pick of the litter. Her team includes a felonious Gypsy, a pathological liar, a sexagenarian safe-cracker, two noblewomen (one a remorseless blabbermouth, the other with zero regard for rank or military protocol), and a transvestite. OK, so they're not ALL women.
Pitted against them is a ruthless German interrogator and his woman-on-the-side, a French hottie whose Jewish grandmother is a secret from the rest of the SS.
Here's the problem: Much as I like spy thrillers and strong female leads and interesting twists on how to handle clandestine operations, this was neither thrilling nor interesting, and the chicks weren't quite strong enough. It had just enough to keep me reading until I was done, but only barely. There was only one surprise (more on that later); the people you expect to hook up all hook up, the people you expect to hate, you hate, and the people you expect to like, you like. All the things you think will happen? They do. The heroine even marries the charming American with 1.5 ears in the epilogue, just as you know she will when they first meet and begrudgingly check each other out. The only surprise was one of the romantic pairings, and even that surprise was relatively minor.
It's a decent read, if there's not much else around (there wasn't), but it never grabbed me, and I actually started rooting for major characters to get killed off just to shake things up. Naturally, they ended up killing one of the characters I liked, right after allowing some character development, and allowed all the stagnant characters to march through to the epilogue. Wheee.
On the one hand, I found it lying on a bench in the airport, so I'm only out some time, but on the other hand, reading vivid descriptions of brutal interrogation practices was deeply unsettling. I think the best part of the entire book was the theory that in Britain, an American--even one missing most of an ear--qualifies as a sexy foreigner.Labels: espionage, historical fiction, war
posted by reyn at
4:39 PM
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